Hi Everyone. I recently got a new job and relocated to Minnesota. I found a great house to rent, but it is a little big. It is 3 storys. The main level contains my room, bathroom, living room and kitchen. The basement contains 2 rooms (that are unused) and a laundry room. The upstairs contains 2 bedrooms and a bathroom (mostly used for company). I am thinking that if I place a door that leads to the basement, this will really help with heating and cooling costs, but I only rent this place. Does anyone have any other suggestions on how to minimize my heating and air conditioning bill that may not cost as much as a new door? Is the door instalation something that I could ask my landlord to purchase? Thanks for any suggestions!

What kind of heat do you have? (furnace,(gas or electric or oil) hot water boiler , you won`t want to completely stop all heat from the basement,for fear of plumbing freezing in the winter,

I have a gas furnace. I have heard that there are magnetic vent covers that can be placed over the vents in the basement and spare room upstairs. Could these cause the plumbing to freeze even if the main floor is kept at a comfortable tempurature? Any other suggestions?

Its really a guessing game,, yes you can sometimes close some vents off,but not all /many,it may cause the furnace to over heat . If you have 4 vents upstairs you can close off one at a time and see if all works OK, for couple days than maybe one more, the same with the basement,, the system was designed for so much air flow and is necessary to stay close to what set up for, as for the basement you might find you are walking around on cold floors when no heat is in basement